


Left Alone

by Emjen_Enla



Series: Prompted Works [30]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: (big surprise there given its a major theme of s5), (idk how to tag this one), Dubious Self-Care, Gen, Insomnia, Parent Tommy Shelby, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Season/Series 04, Tommy Shelby needs to sleep, Tommy isn't handling being back in Small Health well, Tommy's Gin Distilling Hobby, food sensitivities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21643891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: A morning during s4. Tommy hates the Watery Lane house. Charlie wants his dad.
Relationships: Charlie Shelby & Tommy Shelby, Polly Gray & Tommy Shelby
Series: Prompted Works [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1366669
Comments: 7
Kudos: 79
Collections: Peaky Blinders Exchange Round Two: Season 5 Edition





	Left Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turquoisetumult](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turquoisetumult/gifts).



> So, for whatever reason I’m having a really hard time coming up with fic ideas for s5. The only ideas I have are two angst-fests, one of which is about Tommy and Frances of all people, and the other is about Tommy and Jessie. I do, however, have about five million ideas and things I’d like to explore about s4, so here is a Tommy and Charlie fic in s4 for you.
> 
> I don’t know about anyone else, but I took the fact that Tommy somehow manages to start distilling gin during s4 despite everything else that’s going on to mean he legitimately isn’t sleeping, which seems perfectly in character.
> 
> I admittedly have no confidence in my ability to write children, so hopefully Charlie is okay in this.

Tommy didn’t leave Charlie with maids after the fiasco with Section D. No matter how many times he reminded himself that was the way rich parents raised their children, he couldn’t shake the horror of realizing he’d handed his son off to a person in black and white he’d perceived to be safe and trustworthy only to realize the person hadn’t been trustworthy or safe at all. After that, the only people who he would trust with Charlie were himself, Lizzie and Mary. After Mary quit--he figured he probably couldn’t blame her for that all things considered--there was Frances and a nanny she’d convinced him to hire when it became obvious that the three of them could not always be with Charlie. Tommy had given in only because he could not bring Charlie with him when he went to spend long swaths of time in London trying to get the family released from prison. He still didn’t trust the maids, even though he’d memorized all their names, faces and backgrounds and knew things about some of them that even their own parents probably didn’t know.

Now there were no maids, no nanny, no Frances. There was just Tommy, Charlie and the rest of the family all crammed together in the Watery Lane like rats in a barrel, just like nothing had changed and they’d never moved any higher. It was driving Tommy fucking insane. The Watery Lane house had been intolerable since he’d returned from the war and he’d never have stayed there for much longer than he had, though he doubted he’d have bought Arrow House if not for Grace. Arrow House had been foreign and stressful for months after they’d moved in, but it had still been a million times better than Watery Lane.

One gray pre-dawn morning, Charlie slept in Tommy’s old bed, his little face smooth and untroubled. Tommy couldn’t quite get used to the idea of seeing anyone sleeping soundly in that bed, though he supposed he should be glad Charlie could. The months they’d spent cowering from Changretta in Watery Lane had been horrible for Tommy, but that didn’t mean they needed to be for Charlie.

Tommy sat on the make-shift pallet that had been assembled in the room. He was pretty sure Polly had intended it for Charlie, but Tommy had let his son have the bed because he figured Charlie would get more use out of it. Tommy spent most of his nights working on his new gin distilling project. He didn’t sleep well under normal circumstances, and being back in Small Heath didn’t help matters. He’d been surviving off long naps in odd places at odd times of day. He was very aware this wasn’t sustainable, but he wasn’t ready to try to deal with the alternatives, so he didn’t.

He had to admit to being a little surprised by how well Charlie was adapting to the change in surroundings. The only thing that had inspired tears had been the family itself. Tommy had never thought to wonder whether Charlie remembered everyone, and was quickly punished for not realizing that Ada and Michael were the only Shelbys who weren’t total strangers to Charlie by a frightened four-year-old and the looks of crushed betrayal on Polly and Arthur’s faces. It shouldn’t have hurt--or at the very least he should have been used to it--but it still had. Thankfully, Charlie was a sweeter and much more trusting child than Tommy had ever been and things had been, which smoothed things over quickly. On some level, Tommy knew he should be worried about Charlie’s tendency to quickly trust any adult he came into contact with, but he didn’t have the heart to attempt to teach Charlie that lesson using Pol and Arthur.

The other thing he’d worried about that hadn’t been a problem for long had been the fact that Charlie was a very picky eater. Tommy had a lifelong difficulty with food textures and a nervous stomach both of which were only a facet of his widespread difficulties with maintaining a healthy diet and both of which Charlie had unfortunately inherited. The difference between them was that by the age of four Tommy had known his options were to either force himself to eat things he hated or literally starve. Charlie had never been confronted by that choice and as a result he was picky in a variety of wildly eccentric ways. Tommy had vowed that Charlie would never have to choke down something that made him nauseous, but he’d worried about what would happen when they weren’t living with only servants who had all been ordered not to force him to eat.

It had almost ended in disaster, the morning of John’s funeral Linda had made oatmeal and Charlie had--unsurprisingly--refused to eat it. Polly had gone off on a rant that everyone but poor Charlie knew had more to do with the fact that they were going to burn John in a matter of hours than with whether or not Charlie was too entitled to eat oatmeal. Charlie had burst into tears and fled upstairs. Tommy had started to go after him, but Polly had stopped him. “You really mean to tell me that child’s never had to eat oatmeal before?” she asked. “What are you feeding him in that huge house?”

“Oatmeal’s like eating snot,” Tommy had said. “Of course I’m not going to force him to eat it when I don’t either.” It was obvious that Polly hadn’t really noticed Tommy wasn’t eating oatmeal, which was unsurprising given that they’d all long since stopped noticing if he didn’t eat. “He’s sensitive to textures,” he explained. “It’s on the list of unfortunate things he inherited from me. Admittedly, I haven’t forced him to eat things he doesn’t like, but I also don’t see the point in forcing him to eat something if he’s probably just going to throw it up later.”

He hadn’t waited for Polly’s response because, unlike her, he knew what was going to happen at John’s funeral and he figured it was best to ration the number of arguments he got into with her in the next couple days. He could pretend otherwise all he wanted, but if they were going to get their revenge and survive this he would need Polly on his side. Instead of letting things evolve into an actual fight he’d gone upstairs, comforted Charlie and given him the piece of toast he’d snuck into his pocket before leaving the kitchen. He and Polly never had a discussion about it, but Polly had never tried to make Charlie eat something he didn’t like again.

Now, sunlight was beginning to filter into the room as the sun rose. Pol and the others would be up within the hour and the house would soon be filled with a clamour which had been impossible to sleep through even before the war. If Tommy was going to get any sleep, it had to be now. He leaned his head against the wall and let his eyes slide shut. Just a few minutes...

“Dad?”

Tommy blinked awake. He had listed over onto his side, cheek pressed into the rough, well-used blanket, legs still hanging off the side of the pallet. The room was lighter than before, but not by a massive amount. Perhaps half an hour had passed. He had a headache, which wasn’t necessarily surprising given that stress, lack of sleep and not eating--all common things recently--greatly exacerbated the lingering effects of his head injury.

Charlie was sitting up in bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Per usual, he looked like he had slept well. Tommy hoped that, if nothing else, Charlie would always sleep so easily.

“What is it, Charlie?” he asked. He sounded groggy which was interesting given he’d barely slept. His eyes burned and his eyelids were much too heavy. He tried to estimate the chances that he’d end up passing out in his office and waking up to realize he’d lost the whole afternoon, and figured they were much higher than he’d like.

“You were gone,” Charlie said bluntly. “I was scared.”

That was another thing about Charlie; he always said exactly what he was thinking. It was something Tommy was still getting used to. He wasn’t even sure where the kid had gotten that from; it definitely wasn’t from him or Grace, perhaps it was simply from the environment.

“If you were scared you could have gone and found Pol or Ada,” Tommy said, slowly levering himself into a sitting position, fighting with his heavy limbs. He really needed to sleep and he hated it. “They’re both within shouting distance.”

“I wanted _you_ ,” Charlie said.

Oh, of course. Charlie had settled in so well that Tommy forgot he didn’t remember the family from before the arrests. He liked Polly and Arthur and Uncle Charlie and Finn, but from his point of view he’d only met them at Christmas. He knew Ada and Michael but not in the close way which would make him feel safe going to them for comfort. Lizzie and Johnny Dogs didn’t live in Watery Lane and Frances and his nanny were still at Arrow House, only reachable through a phone call once a week. Tommy was the only familiar person Charlie had to hold on to in what had to be a very frightening situation, no matter how well he’d been handling it. Tommy should have realized that before.

“I was just working on a new project,” he said, kicking himself for his own stupidity. “I can show it to you tonight, if you’d like.”

Charlie’s eyes lit up. “What kind of project? Will I like it?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. ”We’ll have to see.” He was painfully aware that the four-year-old son of Thomas Shelby, OBE, should not be going anywhere near illegal gin distilleries, but he shouldn’t be hiding from the Mafia in the dingiest part of Birmingham either. Unfortunately, neither thing was all that unexpected of the son of Tommy Shelby, leader of Small Heath, Birmingham’s local razor gang.

Tommy hated that no matter how high he climbed, he always ended up right back here.

“You know, I’m never going to leave you, right Charlie?” he asked the little boy. “I might have to go away, sometimes, but I’ll always be back. You understand that, don’t you?”

Charlie nodded solemnly. It was hard to tell if he really understood or not. He might; Charlie was unusually clever in ways that sometimes surprised even Tommy--who, by all accounts, had also been an unusually clever child. Still, Charlie was four; Tommy would have to hope that even if he didn’t understand now he would someday.

“I understand,” Charlie said solemnly.

“Good,” Tommy hauled himself to his feet using the corner of the dressing table and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the headache. “Let’s go down and start a fire instead of sitting up here in the cold, shall we?”

Charlie darted across the room and threw his arms around Tommy’s legs. “I love you, Dad.”

Tommy slowly lowered himself down to his knees and Charlie immediately hugged him tightly around the neck. “I love you too,” Tommy admitted and lifted Charlie up as he stood again.

They headed downstairs.


End file.
